Where will a major county highway project go? Final options to be released this fall
A draft report expected to rule out two-thirds of the potential options for a major highway construction project in rural Centre County is set to be available for public review in mid-September, slightly later than planned.
The state Transportation Department expects to present its draft planning and environmental linkage study for the State College Area Connector project to regulators in late August, spokeswoman Marla Fannin wrote in an email.
The report is set to be publicly unveiled weeks later. PennDOT hoped to have the report completed by mid-summer. Once approved, a more detailed study of the remaining routes is expected.
The state’s highway agency is working to pare down its list of nine potential routes. Six would bring the project through the U.S. Route 322 corridor, while the remaining three would pass through the state Route 144 corridor.
The four least expensive options would use the Route 322 corridor. The two most expensive routes would construct a new highway in the vicinity of Route 144. The difference could be hundreds of millions of dollars.
The project is expected to cost at least $430 million, though its price tag could approach $770 million. All of the potential routes include tens of millions of dollars in land acquisition costs.
The project has been on the drawing board for decades, but was abandoned in 2004 when funding was scrubbed. Gov. Tom Wolf said in 2019 that the state was committed to funding the about 10-mile project.
Potter and Harris Township residents, as well as the latter’s board of supervisors, have been the most vocal in their opposition to bringing the project through the Route 322 corridor.
“We vehemently oppose all alignments along Route 322,” Harris Township’s decision-makers wrote in September. “These alignments would forever alter the character of our community.”
Farmers have also been critical of the project, saying it could lead to the demise of multigenerational family farms, has led to a drop in property values and put estate planning on hold. Others have found it difficult to plan for future years.
“Centre County is home to prime farmland, and some of these proposals have not taken that fact into consideration,” Centre County Farm Bureau President Dave Fetterolf said in a written statement in May. “We understand the idea behind trying to avoid disrupting businesses when planning this route, but the fact that these farms are not being considered as agricultural businesses is unacceptable.”
Construction is not slated to begin until at least 2027. It’s expected to take upward of four years to complete.
